President Ferdinand R Marcos Jr has obtained a commitment from giant aerospace company Airbus to work with the Department of Transportation (DOTr) on the use of modern technologies for biofuels and for the extraction of carbon energy from the country’s landfills for eventual use in the aviation sector, the company’s top executive said on Tuesday.
Airbus is part of the DOTr’s working group preparing a roadmap for sustainable aviation fuel use in the country.
“We are working on with the DOTr working group to see how can we get sources of fuels with high-density populations. said Anand Stanley, Airbus’ President and Head of Region Airbus Asia-Pacific, during a one-on-one meeting with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in Berlin, Germany.
“So, used cooking oil is an opportunity where if it can be collected in larger quantities because there’s a lot of competition, it can be recycled as treated biofuels,” he said.
“The second area we’re trying to study with the Department of Transportation is landfills—waste landfills. It is large amount of trash. Other technologies that we can use is carbon energy from the landfills,” he pointed out.
According to Stanley, Airbus made a similar venture in Australia involving carbon extraction from vast landfills.
The process basically involves extracting or collecting organic matter on any fatty oil matter from landfills and see if there is carbon. It will then be bracketed to get some molecules out of it, just like with cooking oil, Stanley explained.
“So agricultural wastes, sea algae, cooking oil, edible fats, or other kinds of agricultural seeds. All of these can be used to create sustainable aviation fuel and can be sold at a higher [quantity]. So we are working with the Department of Transportation working group to see if there is a roadmap that we can create,” the Airbus official said.
The venture has started to become financially viable because of the high cost of carbon credit for aviation, Stanley explained, adding if it is used for Philippine Airlines or Cebu Pacific, both airline companies could sell the credit to Germany’s airline, Lufthansa if they don’t want to move it.
Carbon credits, also known as carbon offsets, are permits that allow the owner to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.
Stanley said Airbus has been focusing on three areas where it feels it can immediately consult with the DOTr on aviation fuel, trying to find a partner for human capital development, and forging a higher-level partnership with a Philippine and a European university.
“We are also always there to support another area we could—the traffic problem in the Philippines, in the airports. We can help in the studies on automated traffic management and, in some cases, unmanned traffic management to free up the air space,” Stanley told President Marcos.
Airbus, with approximately 134,000 employees, is a global pioneer in the aerospace industry, with pride in its 50-year history of innovation and technological firsts.
Operating in commercial aircraft, helicopters, defence, and space, Airbus is a leader in designing, manufacturing, and delivering aerospace products and solutions worldwide.
Airbus holds 100-percent market share of the narrowbody segment (operated by Philippines Airlines, Cebu Pacific, and Air Asia Philippines), as well as 70-percent market share of the widebody segment spread across Philippines Airlines and Cebu Pacific. PND
